To lose weight or change your attitude towards food, you plan to not eat any food for a week. And to make sure your safety and check if your body is tolerant of this kind of starvation, you may wonder to know what will happen to your body after a week and how will your body react each day during these 7 days.
But keep in mind, you need to keep drinking water every day during this period, as we humans can survive for 3 weeks without food but only 3 to 4 days without water.
If you’re healthy and stay hydrated, you’ll burn a lot of calories and finally lose fat in a week. If you’re a person with high-fat storage may not have a health issue because your body will begin to utilize fat as the fuel to make energy for maintaining metabolism.
However, if you are thin, you lack fat and it may not be a good idea for you to try eating nothing for a week as you’re easier to get sick.
Listen to your body and stop immediately if something doesn’t feel right. It’s recommended to see your doctor before starting not eating for a week.
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What Happens If You Don’t Eat for a Week
For most healthy people who don’t eat for a week but drink water regularly, you will be hungry and lose some weight around 2kg to 5kg more or less. Your condition may be different each day.
The first 2 days are tough as no food intake will make you feel hungry, and your body will go into ketosis or fasting. However, your hungry may gradually disappear from the 3rd day, and from the 4th to the 7th day, you’ll feel more energetic, but you may become delusory.
First Day
On day 1, you’ll be hungry but not very hungry. You may spend more time thinking about food than usual, but you think you can insist on not eating.
Your body will lack the energy required to perform basic metabolism. Your body powers by burning calories as energy, and calories are from food.
As you don’t get any food, your body will consume your blood sugar first, then convert liver glycogen and muscle glycogen into blood glucose, and when these are insufficient, your body will switch to burning your stored fats from fat cells for energy. As a result, you will lose weight after a week of no eating.
Second Day
You’re increasingly hungry and you may feel weak. You won’t feel like yourself although you are still drinking water.
As you don’t take food for 2 days, your stomach may start to shrink, you may feel nauseated, and stomach acid may reach your throat every 30 minutes.
Starvation lowers your body’s basal metabolic rate and the fewer calories your body will consume to adapt to your not eating condition. In the absence of food, your body will start to use stored fat for fuel and you may experience weight loss.
You’ll have a strong desire to find food and a strong want to eat. It seems like you could smell the food you were thinking of. Besides eating food to relieve your hungry, you may also want to eat something salty as your electrolytes are unbalanced.
Your hunger may also influence your energy levels and behavior. You’ll become sluggish, irritable, light-headed, and can’t be focused as your brain can’t function well due to low blood sugar levels.
As your body’s metabolism slows down, you may be exhausted and cold, in addition to other symptoms such as fatigue, anemia, lower body temperature, difficulties concentrating, susceptibility to infection, and dry skin. Meanwhile, you may experience decreased urine output and no stools from this day.
Third Day
By the third day, hunger is likely to go away, but you’re weak and your body temperature decreases. You may experience dizziness and shakiness, along with reduced alertness and consciousness.
You may not think about food like the first two days, but you’re easily attracted by food odors when exposed to them.
Fourth Day
Hunger is no longer an issue, but your body can’t function normally after 4 days of not eating. You may feel your brain may function well than 2 days ago, your focus may go up, and maybe you think you can drive a car, or go back to work.
However, you may become delusory and lose touch with reality.
Fifth to Seventh Day
You might have more energy on days 5-7. And you may be productive at work. You’ll be happy you’re alive. But your brain can experience delusions often and your mind will be easily wandering.
Example of a Healthy Man Eat Noting for 7 Days
You may have a better understanding of what your body will be every day from this man’s real experience:
Final Thought
Not eating for a week is extremely hard on your body, especially because your organs and muscles may deteriorate. Therefore, you should prepare well before doing.
Starving yourself isn’t a good option for losing weight. Of course, you can lose weight quickly but at a high cost. There are no shortcuts to losing weight and the best method may have a healthy diet and exercise.
